Which Way To Somewhere Third story in my series
by DrHLecter
Summary: Clarice makes her decision about her true feelings for the Good Doctor as they run into a little trouble on the highway.


Disclaimer: THOMAS HARRIS created Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. They are used without permission, but are used for entertainment purposes ONLY for readers of fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended, and the author, and/or maintainers of this site make no profit, of any kind.  
  
Title: Which Way To Somewhere  
  
SUMMARY: Clarice makes her decision about her true feelings for the Good Doctor as they run into a little trouble on the highway.  
  
Rating: PG  
  
PART ONE:  
  
Hannibal Lecter's new, green, Jaguar 2004, XJR, V-8, Coupe, loomed down the highway after Hannibal and Clarice's hasty retreat from the Bangor, Maine house.  
  
A song played softly on the radio: WHICH WAY TO NOWHERE, WHEN YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO GO?...  
  
Hannibal switched off the radio, as the music was distracting him from thinking.  
  
"Let me get this straight?" Clarice asked again, still a little confused from all the drugs she had been given. "We had to make a quick getaway because of some woman you perceived might be a threat?" How do you know she's F.B.I?"  
  
"I don't," Hannibal answered, "but certainly this woman, Jocelyn Eve Taylor, knew who I was and figured out that we were together....So, Clarice? Which way? To nowhere, back to the mental asylum? Is that where you would like me to drop you off?"  
  
Clarice turned in the passenger seat and looked at Hannibal. "No, Hannibal I DO have somewhere to go...with you, if you'll still have me?"  
  
He shrugged this off, without looking at her. "You're still drugged," he stated.  
  
"Maybe a little, but I know what I'm saying. I was wrong. I told you I loved you. I meant that...but I couldn't reconcile myself to a lot of what you've done. You've killed a lot of people, very sadistically," she said.  
  
"So what's changed?"  
  
"You asked me if I loved you, would I ask you to stop? Well, I'm asking. STOP, if you love me, Hannibal. Stop." Clarice stated with conviction.  
  
He STOPPED---the car, putting it into neutral. He couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. He still wouldn't make direct eye contact with her, though. "After all the lies and escaping from me, how do you think I could possibly believe you now, Clarice?"  
  
Clarice steeled her voice the best she could to make her point. "You know what my Daddy meant to me. I swear...on his grave, I'm telling you the truth."  
  
Clarice then unlatched her seatbelt, reached over for Hannibal, and found his lips. This was the first time she had made the first move to kiss him. She put her mouth over his, giving him a very passionate kiss, which he reciprocated.  
  
Then he remembered where they were. "As much as I would like to continue this, Clarice, this isn't the time or place." Then he shifted the car back into DRIVE, and they continued down the highway.  
  
Hannibal parked the Jaguar behind the Motel 6, so it couldn't be seen from the road. Clarice watched him walk into the office to check in. They had only been on the road for two hours, and he was now already stopping at a motel 6? This is going to be where we'll make love for the very first time? Somehow, I thought Hannibal would pick something a lot more romantic—at least a nice hotel. And why didn't he make me stay in the car? I guess he does believe I won't run off, while he's registering.  
  
Clarice watched him exit the clerk's office with a receipt. He walked right past her and paused to look at his Jaguar. Then Hannibal began feeling under the rear, passenger, wheel well. Clarice was mystified now, until Hannibal pulled a device from underneath it.  
  
"A tracking device," he told her. Then he threw it to the ground. "Come on, get back in the car."  
  
She quickly complied. "How did THAT get there?"  
  
"Eve. I have no doubt. She was the only person who saw the car I'm currently driving when I came to her aid. But we don't know who she really is, and can't take any chances." With that, Hannibal started the Jaguar and drove back onto the highway.  
  
In the car, Hannibal continued. "Even if Eve is only some rogue, unstable woman with a personal agenda, which I suspect she is, it doesn't mean she won't be a problem. She could very easily call the F.B.I."  
  
"Why did you stop at the motel 6?"  
  
"To lead Eve, the F.B.I. or whoever else might be after us there, to a dead end, to buy us some time. That's why I registered under Dr. and Mrs. Peyton Lake. Whoever is following us, might even stick around for a while, thinking we will come back to the room I rented."  
  
"Oh," Clarice sighed with relief. "Back there for a moment, I thought...."  
  
"Thought what?" Hannibal asked?  
  
"Never mind," she smiled, trying to change the subject, embarrassed at what she had first assumed.  
  
But the ever-sharp Hannibal knew what she had thought. "So, you thought our first time was going to be some cheap quickie at a tawdry motel?" He grinned. "I've waited far too long for you, not to make it a very special occasion when the right time comes," he winked. "Have you ever been to Italy, Clarice?"  
  
"No, but are you crazy? After the way you left Florence? They'll be looking for you."  
  
"My dear," Hannibal interrupted her. "I will be sought out anywhere in the world I go. Nowhere is safe. And they are other beautiful cities in Italy, besides Florence, we could go to. Your Italian isn't so good?"  
  
"No, I don't speak it, at all. You already know that."  
  
"Reach into the glove compartment," he instructed her.  
  
"Reach into the glove compartment," he instructed her. "Start studying," he said.  
  
Clarice glanced over at him in astonishment. "How did you know I'd be coming along? I mean, why else would you have brought this phrase book for?"  
  
"I DIDN'T know for certain, but I suppose I was still hoping," he smiled.  
  
PART TWO:  
  
They had been driving for about an hour, and Hannibal was quite pleased because traffic was extraordinarily light on this route he had chosen. They would be at the JFK airport much sooner than he had anticipated for their transatlantic flight. He called on his cell phone and reserved two first class tickets to Rome, using his newest false identity's credit card. Meanwhile, he and Clarice exchanged some small talk as he tried to assist her with the common Italian phrases; she had very little time to memorize.  
  
"What about this Hannibal? I'm trying to ask the server about the fish? Is this right? Cosa è vostro pesci nome?"  
  
Hannibal couldn't help but suppress a laugh, while still trying to sound stern. "You just said: What is your fish's name?"  
  
"I was trying to ask the server his name and what kind of fish they had. Oh, hell, I'll never get the hang of this!" Clarice tossed the book aside in frustration.  
  
"Try to stick with the common phrases already in the book. Don't try to get too creative. There will be plenty of time for you to learn proper Italian. But, right now, just try to learn enough to get by. I will do most of the talking."  
  
Suddenly there was a loud BANG. The left rear, right tire had blown out. Hannibal struggled to straighten the car, while glancing in the rearview mirror. "We have company. A dark blue van behind us, and the occupants just shot out our tir..." Before he could get the words out, a second shot shattered the rear window.  
  
"Hang on!" he told Clarice as he accelerated, even with the flat tire.  
  
"I don't see any flashing lights or hear a radio announcing for us to stop like law enforcement is supposed to do, to give us a warning."  
  
"That's because it's not the F.B.I or the police."  
  
"I can see MEN in that van, so it can't be Eve."  
  
"No. Bounty hunters, I'd venture to guess."   
  
"Bounty hunters? Working for whom? Mason Verger is dead. There is no more reward."  
  
"But I believe Mason was crafty enough to put a clause in his will to still offer some sort of reward in a trust, in the event of his death before he found me. He wanted to be sure I would still be hunted down."  
  
BANG. Another bullet hit the Jaguar. Hannibal fought with the stirring wheel to maintain control of the car, and to avoid other vehicles on the highway. The rubber tire was already disintegrated, and the bare rim was sparking as the rolling steel went over the concrete. Drivers in other vehicles saw what was happening and started to panic.  
  
"We'll be killed!" Clarice shouted, as the Jaguar weaved between other traffic.  
  
"And I can't outrun them with a flat tire, even though I'm going over one hundred miles hour now; the rim and wheel will be coming apart soon."  
  
Soon more bullets sprayed into the Jaguar. Because of the gunfire and the two speeding vehicles, weaving on the highway, other cars, vans and trucks were hitting each other, causing a chain reaction of accidents, as the Jaguar and the pursuing van somehow, swerved around the obstacles, avoiding a collision with the other damaged vehicles, littering the highway around them.  
  
Hannibal shouted, "Here is a .44 he said, pulling a gun from under the seat. Knives are my specialty; guns are yours! And you'd better be accurate, I can't hold the car on the road, much longer."  
  
"Right..." Clarice took the gun and aimed out the already broken back window at the driver of the van, which was chasing them.   
  
With extreme precision, Clarice took aim and shot the driver of the van. The van veered off the highway at the high speed it had been traveling, narrowly missing another small car, before it tumbled over several times. It was completely smashed to pieces by the time it finally stopped moving. It was obvious all the occupants were dead by the condition of what was left of the van.  
  
Hannibal brought the Jaguar to a stop at the shoulder of the freeway. "Let's get our luggage and get away from the scene before the police come. Hurry!" Hannibal said.  
  
Clarice looked over the somewhat beaten up, but still repairable Jaguar. " How can you just abandon your very expensive car like this?"  
  
"How can I not? Soon the police will be here."  
  
"But we have no transportation now!"  
  
"Get all of your belongings, Clarice, out of the Jaguar?"  
  
"Yes." Clarice began pulling out their suitcases from the car, carefully shaking off the shards of glass from the broken window.  
  
A man in a white SUV, stopped and got out, surveying the automotive wrecks. "Are you folks, okay? Anything I can do to help?"  
  
"As a matter of fact there is." Hannibal answered politely just before he knocked the man over the head, rendering him unconscious. "Now we have transportation. Come on, Clarice; let's get into his vehicle. Move!"  
  
Clarice looked down at the unfortunate Good Samaritan with a disapproving grimace as they stepped around the man lying there.  
  
"He's not dead, only unconscious. He'll just have a bad headache when he comes to."  
  
With that, Hannibal and Clarice got into the man's vehicle and drove back onto the highway.  
  
Hannibal turned the SUV around, no longer going toward the airport, but instead driving back in the direction from which they had come.   
  
Clarice was still a little shaken up. "Hell, that was a close CALL."  
  
"Yeah," Hannibal agreed, "And no doubt, there will be many more attempts on our lives, I fear."  
  
Clarice turned her head and looked out the back of the stolen vehicle's rear window to make sure they still weren't being followed. Nothing looked unusual. "Aren't we still going to the airport, to Rome? She asked. "We might be safer there."  
  
Hannibal frowned slightly. "No, I wouldn't think it too prudent now. Some more of those men could be waiting further up the road and perhaps even staking out the airport, looking for us there."  
  
"So it's which way to nowhere?"  
  
"No, it's just a matter of finding which way to somewhere, for US," Hannibal assured her, with a smile.  
  
THE END (Actually, it's only the beginning for Clarice and Hannibal.) 


End file.
